9 families accept 1st 9/11 attack payments

Average from fund around $1.3 million

August 23, 2002|By Edward Walsh, The Washington Post.

WASHINGTON — The first compensation awards have been approved for 25 families of victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, providing each an average of $1.3 million, the administrator of the government fund established by Congress announced Thursday.

Nine of the 25 recipients have accepted their awards, but four others who were not satisfied with the amounts have requested hearings to press for more, said Kenneth Feinberg, special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001.

He said the fund hadn't heard from the other 12, but that he expected most would accept their awards without a hearing.

According to a chart released by Feinberg, individual awards ranged from $300,000 to $3 million. The most generous awards, ranging from $2.1 million to $3 million, went to families of victims who had annual incomes of $200,000. Feinberg said most individual awards were for $1 million to $1.5 million.

Feinberg said he hoped the size of the initial awards announced Thursday would encourage more people to apply for compensation.

The Victim Compensation Fund was established by Congress in legislation enacted last September to aid the U.S. airline industry, which suffered a severe downturn as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. At the time, officials feared a tidal wave of civil lawsuits stemming from the attacks.

Families of the dead, as well as about 300 people who suffered injuries, qualified for compensation in the attacks. Under the legislation, people who seek compensation from the fund must waive their right to file lawsuits for damages in connection with the attacks.

Feinberg said 662 people have applied for compensation from the fund so far, but almost half of those hadn't yet completed all the necessary paperwork. He said he believed there were several reasons why more people haven't sought compensation.

"People are grieving," Feinberg said. "I have met with scores of families who are simply unable to deal with a [monetary] computation of a lost loved one. It's too soon. There are many families that are emotionally ill-equipped to fill out the form."

No specifics about the victims or their families were included in Thursday's announcement.

Feinberg said the deadline for seeking compensation is December 2003, and that other families, knowing they have time, are holding back in filing claims to see the amounts initially awarded by the fund.

He said that in other cases lawyers for victims' families are "sitting back trying to gauge the most important factors in computing these awards... ."

The Association of Trial Lawyers of America has set up a program offering free legal advice to those who want to seek compensation from the fund. Drew Britcher, one of the lawyers, said attorneys have submitted 14 "lead cases" to Feinberg that involve what they expect to be "recurring issues" in calculating awards. Feinberg said he expects to make a decision on those cases soon.

Under the law, Feinberg said he must consider the victim's age and potential lost income in calculating the size of an award.

In general, this means that families of younger and more highly paid victims could expect to receive more.